Unemployed Mother - Entitlements?

Hi,

My wife gave birth to our beautiful daughter back in early in 2009. Before going on maternity, she left her position as her job requires a lot of travel throughout the country and she was told she could resume as a local store manager instead (a role she had before promotion).

As date for return drew nearer, she received confirmation that she would be bumped down 10k salary-wise, along with removal of car etc and she would be working the new longer hours in the store. 9-7 mostly plus weekends.

The bump down in salary coupled with longer hours really made us question the merit of putting her daughter in a creche for very little extra gain financially only to see her a so little. She requested an alternative solution such as jobsharing with current manager or part time but these were declined. So she resigned given a workable solution couldnt be found.

She does want to return to work but obviously it would have to make sense financially. To return to work where the cost of childminding would consume that salary wouldnt make any sense.

Is she entitled to apply for the dole? I would have thought yes but maybe I'm wrong.

jaybird said:

If she voluntarily gave up work then she could have to wait up to 9 weeks to qualify for benefits. She will have to be actively seeking and available for fulltime work in order to claim Jobseekers Benefit.

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The disqualification period will only count from date of resignation and it is not an automatic disqualification either; reasons fro leaving are taken inot account.

Your income will be taken into account as her PRSI stamps are probably too low. If you earn any kind of income expect little if no money.

Buddyg said:

Your income will be taken into account as her PRSI stamps are probably too low. If you earn any kind of income expect little if no money.

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She would have a full 2008 record of PRSI between work and Mat Ben claim so porbably will qualify for JB: then income doesn't come into it.

Yeah she would have to check the stamp situation. Either way she is not entitled to any benefit as she is not available to work.

L0llip0p,

I wonder if your wife has considered working from home? That way she could fit in working with times when the baby is asleep.

My daughter has two little boys and her husband is in the RAF so they move house regularly. She is a registered child minder now and finds that on each base they move to there are usually mum's that need child care.

She is also starting up a Web site on kids crafts. She can add to this wherever they are next posted. I introduced her to the company where my own sites are hosted, SiteSell, and she fits in time working on creating content for the site when the children are asleep or at nursery. Hubby also looks after her own boys on a Sunday morning so that she can have an uninterrupted session once a week.

Going back in time to 2006, I lost my own job for a couple of reasons. One, I did not agree with the way staff and clients were treated, and two, I had severe health problems. This left me at home, in a tiny village with very little money.

I took a chance and started my first Web site not knowing if it would bring any results. After all what did I know that I could share? I soon realised that we all know something about something. We all have something we are passionate about and like to talk about all the time. With me it was needlework. I had dabbled in designing and selling my designs before but never had a lot of success in finding customers.

After working on the site for a while, and being delighted with how easy they made it to accomplish I bought another site, and this time wrote about the special diet I have to follow. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons! Both sites together have now quadrupled my previous monthly wages, and I do it all from my spare room.

My daughter has the first hand knowledge that if she sticks at it, it will work. She doesn't have to work regular hours, she can take the kids out for a treat at the drop of a hat and the site will still be there waiting for her when she gets back, and it might even have made her some money.

Can't be bad eh?

Good luck, and I hope you find a solution to your situation.

Regards,

Cazza.